Kaytee CritterTrail One Level Habitat for Pet Gerbils, Hamsters or Mice

This is a very nice cage. I had a small syrian hamster in the other Ovo orbs pictured for a little over three years. After he passed I ended up with....what I think are two robo dwarves that were homed together so I took them together. They are very active and I wanted them to have extra floor space. Well....I have had small critters over 40 years now. In the early 70s we gladly put a hamster or a gerbil in a 12x12 cage with newspaper bedding. Yep.. ..totally not ok in today's world. It has only been in recent years people have begun making such huge homes for such small pets. To me that partially defeats having a small, easily contained pet to enjoy. I personally dont buy in to super huge homes as being necesasary. So, someone out there will say this is two small for two dwarf hamsters and I agree. The Kaytee Critter Trail One Level is too small for 2 dwarfs but attached to other parts it is fantastic. With it attached to THREE ovo habitat orbs and other pipes....all I can say is, I think it is a fine home at my house for my pets. I just really liked the idea of more venting....better summer air flow....and it seems they can recognize the floor space is different; not round. I didnt have a problem with the wheel it came with i just chose to use a saucer I already had. The wheel is fine to me for dwarves. Ok....so....cons. The vents make for more sound travel than the enclosed ovos. No problem....my set up is in a den not a bedroom. Also, to clean this effectivley....other than spot cleaning; an adult would HAVE to help a child, imo. I can tell the best way to clean this will be remove the whole entire top as the small hand hole will not work for that 3 week deep clean. But it was not too difficult to remove it. The water bottle is functional but i have chosen not to use it...more on that later. This is a "recreational room" add on for me and a carrier or temporary full cage when needed. Pros...looks fun and great. Looks really wonderful and whimsical to my adult self. I can see a child would love it. It was easy to put together once I understood how that yellow side tube slides in. If you pay good attention to sliding that in from up to down instead of trying pushing it in, you will be fine. Im not a math wiz....but floor space is more than in a single ovo and due to its rectanglar shape and it will be easy to put a little home made wood and dowel level in there....or even a big igloo type bed with a lot of top space. The round ovos are limited in how tall a thing you can easiky fit inside. There are options to suit anyone. I think...if you are jus starting out....two of these hooked together would be a nice home for 1 syrian hamster. I suggest two hooked together over something so large a child or adult had a hard time cleaning. If it is so hard and miserable it will not get done often enough. The quality is good in my opinion. I didnt feel that any parts were to thin or too bendable or too fragile. The size is manegable for cleaning and would be great to take for a several day trip. Or maybe to take to a shady area outside on a nice breezy day. Always be extra careful if course if you choose to do that. Air flow is a super nice benefit of this cage. The plastic bottom will be easy to wash. Nothing at all wrong with this home. It is colorful and easy to see in. The water bottle it comes with is my only issue. It would be hard for a seasoned adult hamster owner to monitor water in a blue bottle. Very bad color choice on the manufacturer's part but it is a ver easy fix. Unless you live on a 3 day schedule to help your tiny critter religously and are super used to that, consider another bottle. This is not an ok bottle for a small child. They need to see the water level much better. A leak could kill the pet if it goes long without water. Tiny Pets need and deserve fresh water atleast every 72 hours even if they still have plenty of water. Over all....I say this is an A cage IF you have one add on or more. Tubes are not floorspace....the areas with bedding or pine chips is floor space. Great product over all. Completely satisfied with this purchase. Sorry for the length; I just feel like my son loved it or I hate it are NOT actual helpful reveiws. I want you to know what an experienced hamster owner actually thinks of the product because I spent good money on this hoping to get many years of use from it. Thank you and hope it was benefial information to help you choose.

First, I have two small gripes with this cage: 1. the watterbottle is really a bit too low for Syrians, and it is unfortunate there is no way to adjust the height. Crittertrail makes other waterbottles that are better and compatible; you may wish to look into one. 2. Connecting the tubing to the cage is easy. DISconnecting it for cleaning is not, however. I broke a small peice on the plastic end that holds the tubes, and basically made the cage unusuable. I had to buy a $4.00 replacement from their website. You may also experience issues with the door being loose as time goes on, as it is only force fit and has no latching mechanism; a potential escape hazard you will need to be watchful for. Having said all that though, this is a fine addtion to a larger setup. Agian, this is ONLY acceptable as PART of a larger setup. Many hamster owners are parents getting them for their kids without really understanding the requirements for keeping a hamster healthy and happy. This is a fine cage, but only as a peice of a larger setup. It was easy to put together, has a nice no spill bottom, handy petting zone, and came with a decent wheel. It is totally unsuitable as a stand alone cage, however, particularly for dwarf hamsters. It would be fine for temporary storing, such as while moving or cleaning the rest of the setup , etc., but I cannot stress enough that it is not suitable alone as a hamster habitat. If you are looking for a cheap, spacious enough alternative, look for a large aquarium or find instructions on how to turn storage bins into suitable cages.

First thing that needs to be made clear, it is too small for anything as a stand alone cage. Crittertrail and habitrail both are made to be modular and multiple cages are required for a final cage setup. Secondly, these crittertrail cages CAN be too small for Syrian Hamsters. Some Syrians can grow to be fairly large compares to other hamsters even in their own species. A large, long haired Syrian will have problems getting around tight corners in the tubes and can get stuck. For that reason, crittertrail as a brand should be purchased with a critical eye by the owner of the hamster, and not gifted, or purchased before the adoption of the hamster. You will want to be sure the tubes are large enough for your specific hamster to crawl through without difficulty. That said. I have this cage for a short haired medium sized Syrian hamster and he gets around just fine. I wouldn't want a larger hamster in this cage, but after watching him closely and even specifically creating tube setups that were rather extreme to see if he would get stuck, he has had no problem whatsoever so a normal tube setup connecting my cages are not a worry for me. I disconnected all my tubes and made a snakey complex, set it on the floor, and then took my hamster out of the cage and ran him through it to test. This cage is connected to a now discontinued tri level cage that I converted to a dual level cage with two full floors rather than ledges sows to increase his square inches of room. Between this cage, his original cage and another smaller cage he now has nearly 500 square inches of floor space to run around in as well as many different satellite objects I frequently rearrange, just to keep things interesting. This particular cage is a very nice setup and allows for many different arrangements while only taking up 150 square inches of space. My biggest complaint with crittertrail in general is that their clear plastics tend to be very brittle and can shatter easily if disassembled carelessly. For the price however, I am quite happy with the cage, and like all crittertrail cages, as long as you know how to disassemble the cage properly, it is quite quick and easy to take apart and clean and put back together. My only wish is that, aside from better durability, crittertrail allowed you to go to their website and build then order your own cage with all the little toys you want instead of being dependent upon finding them second hand or buying a whole new cage just for a couple small features which you can plug into another cage.

Bought this to replace multi-level cage that was a bad fit. This cage is the perfect fit for Robos. Easy to construct. Safe wheel, tubes, ventilation, and side clips. Easy, safe door latch. Lots of space of bedding. Robos can easily climb the tube to the apartment up top. Cleaning is easy (not traumatic) because the cage has a top compartment/apartment. Affordable!!!

If I hadn’t known that the cage was used, I would’ve sworn it was brand new. No scratches or cracks, all of the parts were in the proper bags and the instructions were also in the box. I’m especially thrilled because I bought a used cage identical to this one that was advertised as “good” a couple of weeks ago, and the entire top was broken and the bar panels were both from the back so there was no door. I’m very pleased with my purchase.

Since this product is basically the only game in town, and it does provide a habitat for the mice or other small critters, I suppose we should be satisfied with it. But there are so many design and usability issues, it's hard to know where to start. I've had it for about 4-5 years now, so I would say I'm quite familiar with it. First, it is a nightmare to clean. Maybe I'm different, in that I don't want the mice to get out while I'm cleaning it. Maybe nobody else cares about that. But if you do, what are you supposed to do with them? For example, the exercise wheels get encrusted with crap very quickly. I mean that literally. So you'd want to clean it. But you can't take the wheel out because there's no opening big enough to take it out. Ok so maybe you're supposed to lift the cage off the base and take it out that way, and clean the base while you're at it? Well, the access tube that connects the lower part of the cage to the "upper room" connects directly to the base. So you can't take the base off without taking that tube off. And if you take that tube off, you've got a direct opening from the upper chamber to the outside world. Hard fail. So all of the cleaning you're going to do is by reaching both hands into the cage through the front door, and hope that the mice stay upstairs. it is not at all easy to clean this way, but we do our best. Speaking of the upper chamber, it actually is removable, so you might think, well, why not just get them all in there and lift that thing out, and then you can do what you want with the cage and then return everybody home and all is well. Nope. There is nothing to close the hole in the side of the upper chamber. It has a big hole in the side, to connect up with the access tube I mentioned previously. So you can try to fabricate some kind of temporary cover I guess, good luck getting it on there without a mouse escaping in the process. Similarly, cleaning that upper chamber, how do you do that? Now you have to herd everybody out of there, and you would want to remove it to clean it, but then there's a gaping hole in the roof of the cage, so that too is a no-go. It is just not possible to clean while it's populated. Ok, then there's the little "observation tower" which is some kind of plastic sphere that attaches to one of those tubes or to the cage itself. It's cute. But why is there a plastic divider, like a choke point in the tube, that makes it so the mice sometimes get jammed up inside there if too many go in, and I'm always worried that they're going to suffocate. There is nothing in the documentation that says why that divider is in there or what purpose it's supposed to serve, and I can find none in my history with it. Just a bizarre design detail. Then there's the whole modular concept. You think you're getting something that you can add on to with other system expansion pieces. But there are two or three different types of connectors, and no rhyme or reason to them. Where you think you want to attach something is invariably the wrong type of connector. And the way you connect and disconnect them is also inconsistent, sometimes you slide it in from the side and it locks in place. Others, are a twist-to-lock type. If you think that's an invitation to accidentally break something because you're trying to twist instead of slide, you're absolutely right. Oh, and the ventilation. In the main cage, yeah, it's a cage, it's ventilated. But with all the mice that I've had in this thing, they always like to congregate and sleep and hang out in the upper chamber, which is a plastic box with a few tiny vent holes in the top. I can't imagine the stench in there. Oh wait a minute! I can! Because whey I get them out of there to at least do a cursory cleaning in place, I experience it. Last thing I'll mention: there should be a one-way door option. Like a mouse trap kind of thing. When a mouse does escape, it's not long before they're trying to get back in again. That's where the easy supply of food is, that's where their family is. There should be a way for them to get in without getting out. There is none. I know this is a long review, but when I leave a negative review, I want you to know that I am not being frivolous. It's not because it took an extra day to reach me. It's because the product itself is grossly badly designed, and really needs to be rethought. So that's that. I was going to give it 2 stars, because I have used it for several years, and it has gotten the job done. But so would a bucket. So I've decided to give it the 1 star that I really feel its design and execution deserve. If the company would like to consider these problems in a redesign, I would be happy to evaluate. It seems that they don't have anyone on staff to do so themselves.

Not sure design can’t make color clear to see it is too colorful . The size is smaller than expected i owed quick clean cages for over 2 years.

I have three crittertrail cages and this one is by far my favorite. It is a great size - before I had the other two cages all three of my mice fit quite comfortably in this one (with a tower added). It is relatively easy to assemble AND disassemble, which is important for cleaning. The petting zone feature can be helpful when trying to catch them and also provides a cozy sleeping place. The water bottle that came with it didn't work, but I have come to expect that from crittertrails and I was easily able to attach my own water bottle from the outside. Overall I just love this cage - the dimensions are perfect for my mice and they love to run on the included wheel. Also, very easy to add accessories and/or expand. So much fun.